Are you still holding your breath following Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 16?
With nuclear bombs about to detonate, the characters all realized they had to make what could be their final moments count.
For Dwight and Sherry, it meant putting the past aside to get to safety.
TV Fanatic had the chance to catch up with Christine Evangelista to speak about the biggest moments and what they mean for Fear the Walking Dead Season 7.
TV Fanatic: It was a really high-stakes finale. What was your reaction when you read the script?
Christine: I loved the script. I think it brings everything to the surface, and I couldn’t believe how much blood was shed, honestly.
It was a very big scene for that for the end of the road for a lot of people. And I think that was just a real intensity to it.
I mean, you have this bomb that’s about to be detonated. You have this group of people that, you know, they don’t know what’s going on until the very end.
And I think it’s just one of the more intense episodes, and it has all of the characters in it, which has been really rare throughout this season.
Sherry and Dwight’s relationship has been on thin ice because Sherry has not been able to let go of the past. Now that they’re all-in on their relationship, what can we expect for them if they survive?
I think, at this point, if you see the moment between the two of them at the end when they go back in, and they free the people in the bunker, they have this sense of purpose; they’re reunited again.
They realized they’re very strong when they’re together, so I think it’s beautiful.
I think everybody’s really wanted these two to be reunited again, and I think the audience has had a difficult time with Sherry constantly leaving Dwight.
And so the two of them together, if they’re going to be a really unstoppable force, I think they would use this power for good.
Sherry has been struggling with what happened to her while she was with the Saviors. Do you think she’ll ever be truly able to move on from the horrors of her time with Negan?
I think that’s a difficult question.
When you experience that kind of trauma, It really does stay with you, and you are different after that, but your ability to get a hold on it is the thing that changes.
This has been the season that she’s really been able to get a hold on it objectively, objectively understand what happened, and come to terms with it and accept it.
That’s a really beautiful place to be. I was so grateful to tell that story because it’s an authentic one, and it’s one that, unfortunately, a lot of people identify with.
But of course, I also think it’s been fantastic that it took the arc of the series for her to really grapple. This wasn’t something that was really rushed. And I think there was a lot of honor.
So the writers are really good job and not just brushing this off.
The episode was fast-paced. What was it like to film?
It was a really intense episode. Every scene is so heightened because you’re on the clock.
Very early in the episode, we’ve gotten out of the bunker, and we’re trying to find a safe haven, and we can’t find that safe haven.
Sherry decides that if she’s going to go out, she just wants to be with one person that means more to her than anyone in the world.
And I think the urgency of what’s about to happen, and the regret that she feels, you know, pushing him away for so long and holding onto so much anger and pain for so long.
Everything has been really very heightened on an emotional level.
Rollie was revealed to be working with the End is the Beginning group. At one point, I worried that Sherry would be revealed as one of the villains. Did that ever cross your mind when you were reading the scripts this season?
No, I never thought that. I was surprised about Rollie, but it never crossed my mind that I thought Sherry would do that.
I mean, Sherry has a lot of pain and anger, but I think it was always from a place of just really trying to do the right thing.
She was doing it in the wrong way.
And you’ve brought Sherry over from The Walking Dead. What have you enjoyed the most about working on Fear the Walking Dead?
I think the continuation of Sherry and really showing the audience what happened. We never really got to see the emotional life of Sherry and the repercussions of what happened in the Sanctuary.
It was fantastic to come in and tell that story, to show how this woman evolved and turned into this, as I say all the time, this Sherry 2.0. She’s a very different person than when we first saw her in season five of the walking dead and to show.
The emotional evolution and the physical evolution of this woman.
I’m very lucky in that it doesn’t happen very often to have the opportunity to pick up a character years and years after you first portrayed her is such a unique experience. And I was really excited at that opportunity.
The series is not messing around. Setting off the nuclear bombs sets the stage for a very different Season 7. Are you able to speak about what fans can expect?
After what just happened in season six, I think everybody’s going to have a very different perspective on life.
If you see the way Strand ends, you see this different look in his eyes; there’s a different look in the eyes of Sherry and Dwight.
Everybody’s going to have a very different mission and a very different way to view the world.
And it’s interesting when you look at what we’ve experienced recently with this pandemic.
How has this experience changed you, and how are you going to move forward into, you know, the remainder of 2021 or 2022?
It’s a different philosophy, a different mission, you’ve realized what’s important to you, and I think that will really carry its way into season 7 with these characters.
Obviously, the episode was shot during COVID-19, and it really is impressive what you have all managed to achieve. They’re just like regular episodes. Congratulations, they’re great!
We were, I think quite literally, one of the first productions to resume back in September.
And you have no idea what it was going to be like, and I couldn’t even call any of my friends because nobody else had started working on set either, so we didn’t know what it would be like, but It surprisingly wasn’t so different.
It was a lot cleaner, which is what I joke about all the time because our show is just so dirty, but, you know, everyone really put their head down and just went to work, and AMC was just really getting that up and running again.
Are there any characters from The Walking Dead you would like Sherry to share a scene with on Fear the Walking Dead?
I would love to have Daryl Dixon come over. I think that what Sherry did for him and helped him get out of there, they had such an interesting experience, and I’d love to see how they would interact.
One of the things that I picked up on is that the CRM obviously picked up Daniel, Luciana, and Wes. And over on The Walking Dead, those characters are getting closer to the Commonwealth.
Do you think it could ever be the case that the two stories could match up, but the characters that aren’t opposing forces?
I will give that to the writers. The idea is a great idea, but I don’t know if the timing of both of our worlds would align because we’re at different points in time also.
But if that could match up, then that’d be really interesting.
And speaking of the timeline, should we expect a time jump at the beginning of Fear the Walking Dead Season 7?
I don’t know how to answer that. I think we’ll see the world in a very different way because this bomb has gone off.
I think there will be a bit of a time jump, but just to show the damage and the destruction that was done.
What did you think of the finale?
Hit the comments.
Fear the Walking Dead Season 7 debuts this fall on AMC.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.